Saturday, October 30, 2004

Poll Dancers

I just heard a world weary journalist ask whether it is reasonable to think that Kerry can win when all the polls show Bush with a slight lead. If anybody seriously believes that, they really need to go have a talk with ace reporter Wolf Blitzer. Via Kos here's Wolfie on the day before the 2000 election:

BLITZER: And now, let's take a look at the latest poll numbers. The new CNN/"USA Today" Gallup Tracking Poll results are being released at this hour. It shows George W. Bush with 48 percent, Al Gore 43 percent, Ralph Nader with 4 percent, Pat Buchanan with 1 percent.

And those numbers are similar to other tracking polls. Take a look: ABC's poll has Bush at 49 percent, Gore at 45 percent; The Washington Post, Bush at 48 percent, Gore at 46 percent; the NBC-Wall Street Journal tracking poll, Bush at 47 percent, Gore 44 percent. And both the CBS and MSNBC-Reuters-Zogby tracking polls have Bush at 46, Gore at 44 percent.

It's clear that when a race is this close you cannot precisely poll the election. The press corpse should understand this but apparently they don't. Either that or they are listening to RNC spin which I'm sure they would never do. Right?